Discussed in this essay:

The Lost Time Accidents, by John Wray. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 512 pages. $27.

Waldemar “Waldy” Tolliver has been exiled from time, trapped at 8:47 “this” Monday morning in the library of a Harlem apartment that was once inhabited by his two maiden aunts. He has an armchair, a table, half a bottle of beer, paper, and a refillable tortoiseshell pen. Around him are piles of junk: newspapers, Game Boys, carburetors, assault rifles, and “chronometers of every make and model, pendulums primed, springs oiled and wound, circuitry buzzing.” The book Waldy is writing,…